‘The dance clubs and bars were the only place many gay
people could be open about their sexuality without threat, he said. Some
remained closeted in their public lives, letting go only inside the walls of
Sam's or the Annex.

"And back then, frankly, the police and authorities
didn't even want us to have that," Johnston said. "Anybody who worked
at a gay bar in the '70s was at least once arrested at one time or
another."

Bartenders were frequently arrested for delivering drinks
across the bar in what was considered an illegal attempt between patrons to
solicit sex. During elections, "we knew what was coming," Johnston
said. To prove incumbents were "anti-pervert" and tough on crime,
police would raid bars without warrants.’ - per DNAinfo article link above

The entrance to the Dil Pickle Club (1917-1935) was located at 10 Tooker Place just south of Washington Square Park off Dearborn Street in the Gold Coast. This secretive joint opened in 1917 and served as a speakeasy, cabaret, and theater that were visited by progressive (gay-friendly) thinkers of the day. For the purpose of this post a symbol of the past bias and the idea that no 'straight' person would every venture into this neighborhood or establishment if they did not have to or wanted to. And finally, read about the gay life in Chicago before Stonewall let alone Boystown.

The term “gay” would not be in wide currency until the
1940's and 1950's, except as code to the cognoscenti. Homosexuals themselves used
the words “faggot,” “fairy,” and “queer,” or they sometimes called themselves
“temperamental,” but the sociologists were not quite sure what term to use. As
a result, they threw around words such as “indeterminate” and “third sex,” as
well as the pejorative “degenerate.”

1- On this day in 1950: After months of controversy, the United States Senate authorizes a wide-ranging investigation of homosexuals “and other moral perverts” working in national government.

2- On this day in 1973: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (originally titled They Came from Denton High), opens at London’s experimental Theatre Upstairs, where it becomes such a hit that it soon has to be moved to a theater with a seating capacity eight times larger. The film version goes on to be an LGBTQ cult classic.

3- On this day in 1978: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejects an application by Gaysweek magazine to register its name, claiming that it is “immoral.”

4- On this day in 1983: The first gay high school in the country, Philadelphia’s Byton High, holds graduation exercises for the class of ’83. The size of the graduating class: three males, one female. The school was started in 1982 for gay teens as an alternative to the public school system.

5- On this day in 2011: United States Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan affirms in a letter to educators that gay-straight alliances should be afforded the same rights and protections as any other student-initiated organization under the Equal Access Act.

6- On this day in 2011: The El Paso, Texas city council votes to restore health benefits to the non-married partners of city employees. The benefits had been stripped by a voter initiative in November 2010.

Boystown is a community within neighborhood of LakeView that once had the most concentration of LBGTQ folks in Chicago. While the gay community has moved to other areas of the city like Lincoln Square, Buena Park, Edgewater and Rogers Park this Lake View community is still regarded as prominent hub of gay culture in the Midwest. Even today the community serves as a model for LBGTQ folks that wish to establish or sustain viable LGBTQ communities in other parts of the country if not the world.

This article above is about New Town known today as Lake View East. The photo within the article are the shops along 3300 N Broadway that still has Windy City Sweets - known in 1983 as Windy City Fruit & Nuts. Notice the informal cafe settings. Melrose Restaurant (page 43-44) was a popular gay location for the after hour bar patrons.

Before Boystown

there was New Town ...

﻿Business owners likeKathleen Thompson moved to Lake View and established a store called Pride & Prejudice the city's first feminist bookstore located at 3322 N. Halsted St. It later would became The Women's Center and in 1974 and was renamed the Lesbian Feminist Center. The Beckman House was a community center that opened in early 1974 at 3519 1/2 North Halsted Street. The Tavern Guild of Chicago began in the 1970's and created the Rodde Center in 1977.

It served as a model the city's next generation community centers once located at 3225 North Sheffield Avenue. The Rodde Center was the forerunner of Center on Halsted.

To continue to research and read about the history and the LBGTQ evolution in Chicago click on the following link (then the 'go' icon) and begin listening to historical narratives beginning with this modern activist pioneer and dear friend,Tim Drake.

A BoysTown begins to Emerge 1983

New Town was this diverse uninhibited community that respected all groups of folks. The gay community would find its new home here from its beginnings from the pricey near north side.

page 2

Gay Social Services are Established 1983

page 2

The Fear of Death creates a stronger community 1983

page 2

While Boystown still is the mecca for LGBTQ populations in Chicago the community has branched out to neighboring areas within Chicago and the outer burbs. View this digital 2010 census map from the Chicago Tribunethat highlighted the LGBTQ community for the first time.

image - Out & Proud in Chicago

'Construction for the Center on Halsted building on Halsted and Waveland kicks off with a groundbreaking ceremony. Design grant for Green Building is awarded from Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation. Center on Halsted is awarded grants from The Kresge Foundation of Troy, Michigan, totaling $950,000, including an $800,000 challenge grant. Career Development for Youth program is launched. Center on Halsted receives a $1 million capital campaign gift from philanthropist Miriam Hoover. U.S. Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) announced that $1.25 million has been secured for construction of Center on Halsted from the Fiscal Year 2006 HUD appropriations bill. Center on Halsted relocates its offices to 2855 N. Lincoln Avenue following condemnation of the property at 961 W. Montana.'

-Center on Halsted history section

Currently, the Center on Halsted (video) located along North Halsted Street is now regarded by most as the spiritual anchor of not only Boystown but the LBGTQ community in Chicago. The center has been experiencing some growing pains since 2011 with a movement called 'Take Back Boystown' and issues of crime around and in the facility. Issues of crime from youth have have caused

LEED Silver Certification several environmentally that included a few conscious features that included a garden rooftop and rain water collection basin.

image - East Lake View by Matt Nickerson

2011 There was a 'planned development' for the property
that once housed the original Town Hall that would house retired age seniors with affordable housing. It would be a
development partnership with Heartland Housing Inc., and Center on Halsted.

2012 Chicago will
soon break ground on one of the first gay friendly affordable housing centers in America
meant for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered seniors, and to some, seen as a new frontier in housing for low income LBGTQ seniors. It's called the Town Hall Apartments. The first attempt to foster a gay senior center was the White Crane Senior Center once located at 906 W. Belmont organized by George
Buse and Angela Van Patten in the late 1980's.

In October 2012, a new addition to Halsted Street appeared along the sidewalks of Boystown sponsored by a group of gay historians and community leaders. They called it theThe Legacy Project. It's mission is to teach the community about the evolution of LBGTQ culture in Chicago but it is also how Lake View developed into a LBGTQ friendly neighborhood.

On that day The Legacy Walk will become veritable outdoor
museum located on one-half mile of North Halsted Street in Lakeview that
originally featured 18 plaques bearing a laser-cast image of an inductee along
with a 300-word biographical paragraph.

The 'Marker' Map as of 2012

ready for installation - Lake View Patch photo

the pylons - Lake View Patch photo

the pylons - Lake View Patch photo

the pylons - Lake View Patch photo

Legacy Walk Presentation CeremonyOctober 11, 2012

photo - Lake View Patch

photo - Lake View Patch

photo - Lake View Patch

photo - Lake View Patch

photo - Lake View Patch

photo - Lake View Patch

photo - Lake View Patch

the original pylon & locations - Lake View Patch photo

Located in front Old Town Hall Gay Seniorplanned development next to Whole Foods

This blogger volunteered to be a 'monitor' along side a structure that honored Nobel Prize recipient and co-founder of Hull House, Jane Addams. Ms. Hull had a partner-in-life named Ellen Gates Starr. My task was to unveil her at exactly 4 pm to the sidewalk traffic on Halsted Street along with my other co-volunteers.

'Coming Out Day' viewer

'The
Guardian Angel of Chicago's Gay Community'

Of course none of this could not have been possible if it
was not the tireless efforts of a 25 year resident of Lake View - Pearl M.
Hart. She lived at 2821 North Pine Grove Avenue between Surf and
Diversey Parkway.

Is Boystown becoming a 'state of mind' than a geo-political location for LBGTQ folks to live and work? Is the community of Boystown in crisis? Can this community weather the storm of this crisis? Is there room in this nation for another Boystown? Can our community share with West Hollywood, California the LGBTQ spiritual pride that is Boystown? In 2015 the community of Boystown in the neighborhood Lake View won a distinction for most 'walk-ability' ... among other attributes. In 2011 the NorthHalsted Business folks hired a private firm to assist the Old Town police force during special events. Also that year six private security officers called the Pride Proud initiative, business owners along North
Halsted Street have hired private security officers to patrol the neighborhood
during weekends and outdoor events from North Halsted to Belmont Avenue to Irving Park Road on Friday and Saturday nights during holiday weekends and events specifically Pride Fest, Pride Parade in June and Northalsted Market Days in August.

“It’s not that it’s an exclusion. It’s more so ignorance.
If all you’ve ever known is white-only culture, you don’t notice that
something’s missing and it takes seeing the diversity before you can realize
[what’s missing]. That’s what my role in my journey in Boystown has been,
making them aware that there is something missing and then providing that
need.” - read more from above link. - The TriBe 2017

Other bars of pre-Boystown era were the Sunday's Child, The Gold Coast, O'Bannions, The New Flight, The Back Door, and The Trip among others. Below is a list of gay bars as of 1974 many of which located in Lake View.

The Bars Moved North

These establishments moved into an environment in what was regarded as the most diverse community in Chicago from the late 1960's to the early 1980's. It was called NewTown. NewTown had its issues but this enclave of a community that is currently called Lake View East allowed the LGBTQ folks to find a less repressive area to call home. I remember when I moved to the area in 1992 the area near Halsted Street was regarded as the 'gay ghetto' due to the concentration of gay folk who felt safe among their own.

image - Out & Proud in Chicago

This 2009 map

shows most of the bars in the hood at that time

from Gay Chicago Magazine

Visit the bars of 1974 in Chicago that included Lake View's 'The Closet' on Broadway Avenue, 'Knight Out' & 'Annex' on Clark Street, 'Chez' on Lincoln Avenue, 'Boys at Sea' & 'Dickies' on Diversey, and 'Augies' on Halsted Street.

Bars not listed in the above link were 'Big Red's' & 'Piggens Pub' on Diversey Parkway, 'Broadway Limited' just south of Belmont on Broadway Avenue, 'Cheeks' on Clark Street in neighborhood of Lincoln Park just south of Diversey, 'Knight' Out on Clark north of Diversey, Shari's on the corner of Clark and Surf Street, and Paradise on Clark - briefly called Bistro II, same owners of original Bistro on Hubbard Street and a disco club called Crystal's
Blinkers at 3153 N Broadway.

image - Out & Proud in Chicago

Years later this bar would 'turn straight' with a country western theme. Little Jim's was one of the first bars in the neighborhood by the late 1970's. As of 2015, this bar still had the old -fashion black glass windows that once symbolized social exclusion as well as sub-cultural privacy.

Other bars like the 'Odyssey Bar' that opened at 3231 N Clark Street in
November 1973, 'Other Side' at 3153 N Broadway was in September 1980; and the 'Orbit Room' at 3708 N Broadway in April 1986. Listen to the history of the barson the north side from Chicago Gay History contributor David Boyer about the bars of the 1970's.

Half the space was a shoe repair shop according to Dan Pappas while the other half was a hobby shop called Bentley's per David Syfcak, both contributors to my sister site called LakeView Historical-Facebook

"There's a bit of a complicated history for this site, so
here's a primer. Boystown landmark Spin closed in May 2014, and new ownership
came in and opened two neighboring joints: Chloe's and Whiskey Trust. After a
few financially-trying months, Chloe's went away to make room in September for
the second coming of the Manhole. The first Manhole closed in 2002 where
Hydrate Night Club now stands down the street on Halsted. The newer Manhole and Whiskey Trust closed in December, as Spin's former owner, Dave
Gassman once again gained control of the space on the corner."

According to Chicago Pride.com the new bar called " Whiskey Trust would have had a pre-Victorian
saloon-feel with craft cocktails and small plates food - occupy the south
half of the 9,000-square-foot indoor space. Chloe's, a new nightclub with an
entirely new sound system and lighting, will operate on the north end. The front of Whiskey Trust was to a tavern, with the
back portion home to a live performance stage, private room and whiskey
distilling learning center. Chloe's would have featured house music and
artwork of gay street artist Homo Riot, injecting elements from popular gay
clubs in the 80's and 90's."

"We used to go to Berlin a lot, and Roscoe's, and
Foxy's. Originally there was a bar there called Eons, where Spin is at now. I
think there was a straight restaurant there at some point. Eons opened in early
'92 and it was open for about a year and then it became Foxy's. I went to Eons
all the time. It was a cross between Berlin and Roscoe's, they had a dancefloor
and it was funky but it wasn't as Goth ... for lack of a better term ... than
Berlin was. It also had the little ritzy bit of Roscoe's. A lot of Black guys
hung out there, so I liked that!!" - Read more from the link in the title.

The original Manhole was an avant-garde nightclub located
in the where HYDRATE currently operates since 2002. The original Manhole was
created to honor the spirit of the former club and provide a dance space for
those who may feel that they do not fit into other dance club scenes. This
location of the current Manhole is located at the gateway to Boystown along
with The Den, a pool and darts bar.

The Den

The latest concept to take over the former Spin nightclub space in Boystown (RIP Whiskey Trust, we barely knew ye) promises "the feel of a 1920s men’s social bar with prohibition era cocktails." Bathtub gin, gentlemen? - per Time Out Chicago. The bar closed Summer 2016. And then...

interior of the former SpinBefore it was a host of bars and like fate would have it, the corner space was called the ...Victorian House RestaurantRead more about this luxurious restaurant in my post called 'Let's Shop'

Main Sources: Windy City Rewind andGay History: Chicago History WhispersBistro on Hubbard toParadise on BroadwayBy 1980's the gay bars owners had discovered the 'promise land' from the diversity of New Town in Lake View along Broadway, Diversey, and Halsted Street with the establishment of bars. One of the those transitional establishments was Paradise once located on the west side of Broadway -2848 N Broadway

According to Tom Kelley via LakeView Historical - "Paradise was quite the destination for in the early 80’s. Gay, New Wave, Punk,
etc. it was an anything goes place and everything went. They had cages at the
corners of the dance floor - for cage dancing of course. The neighborhood, NewTown was never dull back then.

The bar was probably 4 or 5 times the size of Berlin and actually had a different vibe."

"It was a giant bar/club on Broadway between Diversey & Surf. Where Marshall’s and all that is now. It was a deviously large building once you were indoors. It had bars that connected to other bars in endless rooms. And an even larger auditorium like room in the very back. They had different bands in different rooms." – David Zornig

"Phoenix was known as the Paradise Chicago after 1982, and was said to hold over 1500 dancers at 25,000 sq ft. Before the phoenix closed, it was Country & Western for a while. It had opened in 1975. Before that, it was Ski’s Lounge, Thumbs Up, and Poppy’s, and after the Paradise it closed from 1985-87, became the Phoenix again (ironically enough), Paramore, Chaplin’s Comedy Club (a 600 seat comedy club for about a month in 1991), and Noa Noa. The big room was a converted garage. In 1996 it was all torn down for the large retail and parking garage on the site; initially 16 General Cinemas screens were in this plan, but neighborhood opposition killed it". - Broan

Other bars included Si, Como No in 1975 located on Sheffield and Barry was a short-lived Latin bar when neighborhood was more diverse and the east part of town was called New Town + Siegelman's Allegro at 2828 N. Clark located inside the Century Mall in 1979 according to a publication called Gay History: Chicago Whispers

via Windy City Media Group.

And Few More ....

The Showcase One was located at 959 W. Belmont Avenue as of 1985. The manager in the piano lounge was Todd Dayton, and the general manager in the dance bar was Scott Resch according to Chicago Pride.com. Another bar in the neighborhood was the Palaceonce located at 3401 N. Sheffield in the early 80's. To be researched is Carr's Halsted Street Cabaret that apparently was located at 3320 N Halsted Street next to Scarlet.

Long before it was Steamworks the building was the home of another former bathhouse called the Unicorn Club with a third-floor gym called the Body Shop. The building was purchased in 1991 by Rick Stokes, who famously ran for district supervisor for the City of San Francisco against Harvey Milk in 1977. - TimeOut Chicago

This old school bar (retail in front with bar in back) has become an oddity in the middle of so called gay north Halsted Street. This bar was located the strip way back in 1969 - way before the gay bars on Halsted arrived....

"One of the most diverse and lively neighborhoods in the
country, Chicago's Boystown has something for everyone. So it's wonder that
Jesse Morgan and Cole O'Brien chose to live there upon graduating from college.
Ready to begin the next phase of their lives in an exciting new city, Jesse and
Cole quickly find themselves at the center of a new group of friends. Joyelle
and Derek Mancini have been happily married for years, but Derek is harboring a
secret that could tear them apart. Derek's brother Emmett is about to discover
that his boyfriend Keith Colgan has a past that will haunt them both. Long time
couple Logan Pryce and Max Taylor must face a crisis that neither of them
expected. And, before they realize it, Jesse and Cole find themselves at the
center of it all in the adult playground known as Boystown."

"The book became an international hit, with fans all over the globe clamoring for more. Boystown Season 2 was published in July of 2014. Season 3 was released on May 1, 2015, Season 4 was released on November 13, 2015, Season 5 was released on June 1, 2016, and Season 6 was released on December 16, 2016. Because of the popularity of the book series, fans have suggested that Boystown be turned into a television series. Biondi recently completed the TV scripts for the first season of Boystown and hopes to bring the series to television in the very near future."- Ebay

Nonfiction

Synopsis 2015

"From neighborhoods as large as Chelsea or the Castro, to
locales limited to a single club, like The Shamrock in Madison or Sidewinders
in Albuquerque, gay areas are becoming normal. Straight people flood in. Gay
people flee out. Scholars call this transformation assimilation and some argue
that we gay and straight alike are becoming post gay. Jason Orne argues that
rather than post gay, America is becoming post queer, losing the radical
lessons of sex. In "Boystown," Orne takes readers on a detailed,
lively journey through Chicago s Boystown, which serves as a model for
gayborhoods around the country. The neighborhood, he argues, has become an
entertainment district a gay Disneyland where people get lost in the magic of
the night and where straight white women can go on safari. In their original
form, though, gayborhoods like this one don t celebrate differences; they
"create" them. By fostering a space outside the mainstream, gay
spaces allow people to develop an alternative culture a queer culture that celebrates
sex. Orne spent three years doing fieldwork in Boystown, searching for ways to
ask new questions about the connective power of sex and about what it means to
be not just gay, but "queer." The result is the striking
"Boystown," illustrated throughout with street photography by Dylan
Stuckey. In the dark backrooms of raunchy clubs where bachelorettes wouldn t
dare tread, people are hooking up and forging naked intimacy. Orne is your tour
guide to the "real" Boystown, then, where sex functions as a vital
center and an antidote to assimilation." - Ebay

Narrative & Navigation

This has been a passion of mine for several years. This passion began with a simple inquiry of an ornate gate that surrounds a parking lot on my street. This singular inquiry lead me to learn everything I could online about the history of my neighborhood - Lake View, one of the 77 neighborhoods within the City of Chicago. Consider this topical blog as an online library of information for educators like myself who intend to teach others about this historical & robust corner of Chicago. I hope you enjoy the read and add any type of comments at the end of each post. I have a Facebook presence called 'LakeView Historical'.